Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-03-07

A Part of Train on the Iron Mountain
Railroad Breaks Through Trestle.
ST. LOUIS, March 6th.-The railroad ac-
cident on the Iron Mountain Railroad, near
De Soto, Mo-, which was very briefly re-
corded late last night, while not being at
all unusual in regard TO fatal casualties,
proves to have been quite remarkable in
respect to several circumstances which at
tended it. 1t occurred at Victoria, so miles
south of here, little after 10 O'Clock, and
was occasioned by the giving way under
the train of the trestle which crossed
Joachim creek at that point. The train
was the Texas express, and consisted of a
baggage, express and mail cars, smoker,
two passenger coaches and four sleepers,
conveying about l30 passengers. A heavy
rain had fallen all day and the creek was
much swollen. At Hemutite, the first
station this side of the irestle. the engineer
received orders to run cautiously, as the
rain had been heavy, and the creek
was out of its banks. Engineer Kelly
says he ran slowly beyond that point. and
both he and his fireman, William Hach
watched the track very carefully. As he
approached the trestle, Kelly observed that
the track was entirely straight and level
showing nothing wrong, and he went on
without the slightest fear or hesitation, but
when his engine reached about the middle
of the trestle, he felt the whole structure
sinking beneath him. In an instant he
opened the valve operating the air brakes
to its full width and brought the train to so
quick a stop that the front end of one car
was crushed in by the sudden shock. This
saved the coaches. but the baggage, mail,
express and smoking cars went into the
raging torrent below, carrying with them
all the men on board. Engineer Kelly
and fireman Hach went down with the
engine and were submerged i'll the flood.
Kelly, in his struggles TO free himself,
found that one of his feet was held fast.
but at the same instant, and just as he
realized that he must drown, the engine
turned over, his foot was released, and he
came to the surface. Seiziaga passing log,
be clung to it desperately, and was swept
down the torrent and lodged against tree
$50 wards below. With scarcely strength
enough to move, he clasped his legs and
arms around a limb of the tree became
unconscious, and was not restored till TWO
or three hours after he had been taken from
the tree. Fireman Hath was carried about
500 wards down the stream, lodged in a
mass of brush or drift. and was rescued
soon after the food subsided. The postal
CIR wasswept away some distance, and as the
water rushed through ltfrom end 10 end, the
mail was literally washed out, and it is now
scattered over miles of territory, or
embedded in the mud of the creek. 1t is
regarded as an almost total loss, the whole
of it being completely soaked, and the adj
dresses of the letters obliterated. The
Mccullough, Shaffer and Ryan
were badly bruised and almost drowned,
and, being stripped for work, lost all their
olothes their onld vate hes and ahOnt $3.50
in money, which were carried away by the
flood The smoker, which is said to have
contained some twenty persons, was swept
down about 800 feet below the trestle, and
all of its occupants are believed to have
been saved They succeeded in getting on
the outside of the car and cliDging to its
top until they were rescued. There are
some doubts about the baggageman and
express messenger being saved, but late
dispatch from the wreck says that no train
men were lost.